With the arrival of Peak Oil, the curtain has closed on Act 1 of the drama Petroleum Man. What will happen in Act 2? Chekhov said, "If there's a gun on the wall at the beginning of the play, by the end it must go off." In the world's nuclear arsenal are many guns on the wall. If life copies art, will there be an Act 3 in which the players, having learned their lesson the hard way, live sustainably? To explore these and other questions... FTW's Act 2 Blog. Read, comment, take heart! Orkin

19 comments:

Gordon Brown and Nicholas Sarkozy make $1 trillion in IMF loans look like a new, "compassionate", multipolar world order, kind of a world family taking care of each other.

As I understand it, the trillion bucks is for loans to poor countries. Although they will not be required to run the gauntlet of restructuring (e.g. "austerity" measures and rapid privatization, as IMF loans usually require) one must ask how Latvia will pay back its loan, or where that $48 billion line of credit Mexico seeks will go.

Wasn't it high-level bankers whose devotion to credit adventurism recently made the world economy go splat? I have a hard time seeing a trillion dollars in loans (as opposed to gifts) to impoverished customers as a NEW world order. Having Brazilians participate alongside those traditional Anglo-American bankers seems like little improvement. It's still like offering credit cards to the unemployed. When the customer fails to pay up on time, they'll call it a failed state and declare that it's time to "intervene", which is the same as sending Scarface to their door to collect.

Does Mexico need more debt, or the chance to grow its own corn?

Looks like the Old World Order to me, reheated and served with gratuitous rhetoric.

"Lawrence Summers, a top economic adviser to US President Barack Obama, was paid about US$5.2 million by hedge fund D.E. Shaw in the past year, financial disclosure forms released by the White House showed on Friday.

"Summers, a former US Treasury secretary and Harvard University president, was also paid US$2.7 million in speaking fees by a range of organizations and companies, including several troubled Wall Street financial firms, they showed."

It is always a challenge to blow through the “noise” to arrive at the “information.” The risk of over-simplification runs parallel to the effort. However, there is a principle that is worthy of pursuit: in simplicity there may shine a kernel of truth. Of all that has been written and said about the G20 Summit, what is the underlying premise for action amongst the world’s leading industrial powers? We need look no further than the Summit’s official communiqué.

The official communiqué states: "We start from the belief that prosperity is indivisible; that growth, to be sustained, has to be shared; and that our global plan for recovery must have at its heart the needs and jobs of hard-working families, not just in developed countries but in emerging markets and the poorest countries of the world, too; and must reflect the interests not just of today's population but of future generations, too."

The industrial mantra of growth and prosperity is front and center. This is the underlying premise for the injection of $1 trillion into the IMF by participating nations. This is the cornucopian blind spot that is offered the public. In simplest terms, no matter how bad the global financial and economic predicament may happen to be (and there are now thousands of analyses that one may fall back on) the premise that has come out of the Summit is standard and reactionary: it is business as usual.

Peak Oilers are unanimous in their position that “business as usual” is a non-starter. The underlying collateral for industrial development, i.e. the energy in the ground, has entered the downward slope of depletion. If not full consensus, there is strong opinion within the PO community that 2008 was the peak year. What is more real? The energy collateral in the ground or the financial and economic templates that are superimposed on the collateral, the false notions of capitalism vs. socialism as trumpeted by the corporate media inclusive? (Who owns the “means of production” is secondary to having access to the means of production.)

This break-out onto the terrain of a new paradigm has been outlined clearly and simply by the PO pioneer, Colin Campbell: "Throughout history, people have had difficulty in distinguishing reality from illusion. Reality is what happens, whereas illusion is what we would like to happen. Wishful thinking is a well-worn expression. Momentum is still another element: we tend to assume that things keep moving in the same direction. The world now faces a discontinuity of historic proportions, as nature shows her hand by imposing a new energy reality. There are vested interests on all sides hoping somehow to evade the iron grip of oil depletion, or at least to put it off until after the next election or until they can develop some strategy for their personal or corporate survival. As the moment of truth approaches, so does the heat, the deceptions, the half-truth and the flat lies."

The G20 Summit, in a nutshell, has delivered nothing more than smoke and mirrors, a band-aid for the bankers and an attempt at soothing drool for the public.

The condition matures. The condition will expose the false premises hatched by the G20. The condition is the slide towards Post-Peak Oil and the collapse of industrial civilization. Any analysis short of that is smoke and spin. It is a lie.

I've got a nice big garden growing in my backyard. Peppers and tomatoes already popping out. It makes me feel so safe, till I realize no one else in the neighborhood is gardening. What will happen if there is a sudden collapse. Bye bye garden, hello vandals.

Maybe now is the time to get connected with your neighborhoods. Localize your food network threw cooperative gardening arrangements.

religious beliefs are half the reason why why we are where we are right now

What Would Carlin DoUnquote.

George Carlin was/is a Missionary, in fact his style reminds me of Norman Vincent Peale.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Vincent_Peale

If you want another Missionary, from your side try Bill Maher.

http://digg.com/movies/Bill_Maher_s_Religulous_Movie_Trailer_Released

I have never been a Missionary, they do more harm than good.

Your Belief's are no less powerful than the most radical Christian, or Muslim, & just as religious. If you were a radical looking to ferment decent, where would you meet, in the Library, your basement, rent a lecture hall?Most new thoughts start in a Church or Temple, because they are large and there are plenty of converts waiting to be swayed, it has nothing to do with God!

On p. 140 of "The Survivors Club you find;

Quote.I ask Dr. Koening about the stunning seven-year statistic.

"That has nothing todo with whether God exists or doesn't, whether prayer works or not," Unquote,Farther down, " It is not clear whether the particular religion matters, Dr. Koening adds. More research is needed to determine if the effects are the same forChristianity, Buddhism, Islam, Judaism or any other creed."

Now go back to p. 134,"When I started this book, I was somewhat skeptical of the role of faith in survival."Farther down, "Over time, my incredulity proved no match for their conviction.Indeed, I began to feel admiration for their faith and I envied their certitude."

On p. 135 quoting Ray Smith of the Naval Survival Training Institute in Pensacola, Florida. " I begin with a simple question: "What's the secret of survival?" Without hesitating, he answers: "Faith in God." "Really?" I ask. "Absolutely," he says. "it's a major factor in survival scenarios."

This all may seem broken up, & back and forth, but I did it this way in order to fit this context without quoting all 11 pages. If you think I am misquoting, pleasestart with "Fear no Evil" on p, 134 and read to p. 161 in order to grasp the context.

What we Believe is who we are, You, no less than Me, if you destroy that, it's likeStabbing someone with a Knife!! Amae.

Eyeballs; seems the G20 largesse is global pump-priming by rather desperate pols. Try John Perkins’ ‘Confessions of an Economic Hit Man’ for standard operating proceedures in screwing poor nations.

Otherwise, apart from beefing, what to do? George Washington is dead. Long live the revolution!

Yes, a new revolution is here. The brave & brilliant 1776 US version has served the world for over 200 years. Now it’s dying. So wipe your eyes & look to the future, or likely none of us will have one.

No, don’t expect the Great White Hope Barack Obama to turn back the tide of history. He will be unable to save Joe & Jane Doe’s jobs, or put a chicken in every pot. Because as Mike Ruppert predicted, the oil has near run dry. World population is rising to an impossible level, & there is not even enough water to go round. Global warming is becoming critical.

The billionaire class knows this & is in no mood to make long-term investments in an increasingly profitless future. Money is not circulating, because the banks are tightening up on credit. No credit = no debt = no money moving = economic depression.

Yep, you probably know all this doomy stuff already. So is this guy beating his gums for nothing? I hope not. If we read the signs right, we may be able to work out a strategy to tide us over the world crises. These crises are the downside of the revolution-in-process. There is a positive side. Main thing is to understand what is happening, so we can take action, & not sit around moaning AFTER the next load of crap has landed on us.

For over 200 years humanity has been using its brains to eliminate human labor – industrialization, mechanization, Fordism, automation, cybernetics, etc. You know all about that, I hope. Yet why is everyone suddenly so surprised that jobs are disappearing? It was absolutely inevitable. Pres. Obama can do very little about it. Nor can the Masters of the Universe in Bilderberg, or the G20 hootenannies.

Oh, they kid you they can. That’s to keep you quiet. But, if you can break the barometer, you can’t stop the weather. The iron rule of the universe is change. W/out change, there is no time, & time is irreversible. You can break the clock, but you cannot hold back time. When our three-score years & ten is up, we are on our way out. Nations, empires & peoples are subject to the same mortality. The best we can manage is to go with this flow.

So try a revolutionary thought, & a bit of futurology: who the hell needs work now? Quiet, humming plants turn out almost everything we need. There are just a few guys in white coats supervising, presumably making sure the robots are not goofing off. A pal told me the latest supertankers can be manned by a crew of two: yep, two. Only the insurance companies are stopping that.

Work is not a universal necessity for survival, like it was in the old days. So take another revolutionary step – wages & salaries are no longer a viable way to distribute wealth. It is now time to dust off the idea of a universal wage for everyone (Henry George, ‘Progress and Poverty’, 1879).

Pay people to sit around idle? Why not? There is no longer an economic reason for the great mass of us to join the daily nine-to-five rush. Just think of all the oil & energy that would save. And ‘idle’? People would still opt to work. They would do the kinds of things they like doing, which ceases to be ‘work’.

A government or central body would hand out paper money – wouldn’t that mean runaway inflation & economic-social collapse? No: if inflation appears, the central body just restricts the money supply. If there are private banks, these would borrow money from the government, not the other way round, as in the present cosy racket called deficit banking.

Comes the last subversive thought! Who the hell needs governments & armies of bureaucrats? People with enough spare time will be the government. No longer argue in bars about how the budget should be spent. Get on your computer & decide that with your fellow citizens. Sure there will be mistakes, but that is part of the learning process.

Remember how it went? Back before 1776, they told us ordinary people were too dumb to vote. Politics was in the hands of an educated, propertied minority. Now the argument is that Joe & Jane need a vast government machine of skilled bureaucrats to run their lives. Crap! The answer is the same aim – government of the people, by the people, for the people.

OK, I hear you saying. That sounds fine on paper, but would it, could it possibly work in practise? And wouldn’t it take a bloody revolution to bring about?

First, any revolution runs the risk of bloodshed, but so does a night out in downtown Chicago. As to choosing a revolution, few do that. Most people have it thrust upon them as a harsh choice between two evils, as now. Historic changes have formed the embryo of a new, finer world. We can assist the bloody & dangerous birth of the future: or, we can let it rot in the womb, & us with it. We choose.

I hope you're growing more than just peppers and tomatoes. You need calorie crops like potatoes, wheat, oats, beans. etc.

I've been trying to spread the word about growing one's own where I work. The poorer folks seem to fully understand and many are ahead of me with their gardens. The more affluent ones, for the most part continue to look at me like I'm daffy. I've starting to break through with a few co-workers, even my right wing office mate is becoming more receptive now that she realizes her money might be in jeopardy. I found a common ground with her and have my foot in the door. She's starting to listen to what I have to say. It's a start.

Thanks to all for the advice about the hunting rifles. Junior(age 23) thinks he wants the pump Mossberg 500 with two barrels. Before I blow a bunch of money on this, do folks (like PeakedOut) think this is a durable, trouble-free model? We have to get the shorter model as my son is short-statured. Does it have the same oomph as the bigger model? Where we're moving, it seems like everyone bags a deer or two and cans it for year-round eating. One lady told me her family doesn't eat beef anymore. They also all have home gardens and a community produce auction for excess. They seem to do a lot of bartering too. Did I mention there are a lot of Amish in the community? They have it all figured out. They should give us lessons.

If you are gardening grow for seed and pass them on to your neighbors, literally start their gardens for them. If you can get a mini excavator and share it with your neighbors they can use it to grow fish ponds and swale the side walks. I think an excavator is key.

NOW THIS: http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2009/04/06/2003440359 Asia forking out on defense in spite of slowdown: experts AFP , SINGAPORE Apr 06, 2009 “Increased military spending by China and India is forcing other Asia-Pacific countries to modernize their armed forces despite the severe impact of the global financial crisis, experts say.”

SHEESH. Keeping the world in fear sells weapons. The arms industry keeps the economy going. Drugs, armaments, plastics, oil, insurance, banking ... these are The Economy. Gotta keep the flow going, crank that machine and turn out money. Those who get the money get to control the society.

If The Economy tanks completely, does that mean all this crap will go away? I mean the tomfoolery. Food, drugs, clothes and houses are likely to show up even if big companies don’t finance them, insure them, force tired workers to manufacture them with toxic materials, wrap them in plastic and ship them for thousands of miles. I wish The Economy would slink away in shame and never plague us again.

However, with respect to Old Git Tom’s good ideas, TPTB are not doing this for our benefit, nor do they care whether we like the banking system, or whether we’re “armed” or not. People don’t have jobs because it’s a good idea to file paperwork eight hours a day or crank out auto parts. They have jobs to keep them stressed and out of the way. That, unfortunately, is the real crisis: how to keep people busy, as unemployment hits. We’re gonna see some real creativity, i.e. work camps, wars, maybe even revolutions.

Don’t fall for that. Most people don’t know what to do with their own time and will be swept up in the “need” to work or fight or follow evangelists around to tent meetings. Revolution is forced change. We have quite enough change going on, and it will only accelerate. Some folks are just itchin to show up on Main Street with their pop guns and act like history’s righteous avengers. But turning out in the streets with a lot of confused and ignorant people will not be a rewarding event IMHO. There’s more worthwhile work to be done.

The masses will do what they will do, TPTB will do what they will do, and my favorite option is getting out of their way and cooperating with a few sighted people to help out, from as stable a position as possible. Using Tom’s analogy of a night in Chicago, I’d be the night clerk in a 24H Free Clinic. The place should offer whole wheat bagels and counseling as well as treatment for gunshot wounds, overdoses and tear gas. And it should have a good library in the waiting room.

At our house We have been preparing for this eventuality (or something similar) for the past thirty years.For What its worth we have built a post and beam mud brick house (warm in winter and cool in summer)collect water from our roof into two 5K gallon water tanks plus a dam which collects winter rain and holds approx 1-2megalitres of water. We have solar hotwater, a kitchen garden, a greenhouse and one years supply of essential foodstuffs (Wheat, salt, oil etc. We are trying to reach out to others in our community to say, can we help/show you/assist you but very few believe or want to believe that their world is going to change in the forseeable future. At least here in Australia we do not have the added pressure, as in USA, of everyone (or so we are led to understand) having a gun at their disposal. If this entry seems self-congratulatory, I apologise, however I feel helpless in the face of, what can only be, a future of pain and anguish for millions.Is there nothing we can do?

That’s precisely the point eyeballs…these poor countries can never repay the debt and the IMF with each of its grubby fingers representing chiefly America then loots all of the resources out of those nations.

In Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, John Perkins“…describes how as a highly paid professional, he helped the U.S. cheat poor countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars by lending them more money than they could possibly repay and then take over their economies.”

“Basically what we were trained to do and what our job is to do is to build up the American empire. To bring—to create situations where as many resources as possible flow into this country, to our corporations, and our government, and in fact we’ve been very successful. We’ve built the largest empire in the history of the world. It’s been done over the last 50 years since World War II with very little military might, actually. It’s only in rare instances like Iraq where the military comes in as a last resort. This empire, unlike any other in the history of the world, has been built primarily through economic manipulation, through cheating, through fraud, through seducing people into our way of life, through the economic hit men. I was very much a part of that.”

Regarding the other millions, they are beyond your/or my control, even those we know and Love must act locally, help from a distance is misunderstood, or taken as interference.I think American, You Australian, while they think how/where they were raised, I can't imaginethird world, let alone think it!!

It sounds like you have things under control.Remember you can't prepare for the unknown, no one can do it alone, or cover every possibility.Get to know those around you real well, give them room, don't play the heavy; it's strange howpeople come together when things turn dark, seems they seek a grounded source, someone who thinks & is not threatening. You will find if you are nonjudgmental, you will soon havemore questions than you can handle, survival is going to be about cooperation not conflict.

I have been waiting for information on MCR'snew book, I'm sure it will be helpful. At present get & read "The Survivors Club", itwill open your eyes to the possible, or the impossible that could overtake you, read it with others, like a club & be open to options.Remember for all our differences we have way more things in common.Hands Clasped are always stronger than those clinched in a fist!

PeakedOut has left a new comment on your post "From Jenna Orkin: Global/US Pakistan/Taliban Head...":

Hi Jenna,

I replied to a request for info from CJ, but it did not post. It was firearms related and perhaps you chose not to post it. If so, that is fine, but if it didn't get through or just got caught inbetween postings, could it be forworded on to CJ? Barring that, could you forward my email address to CJ for folow up?

Regards and thanks for keeping things here running. It truly means a lot.

Marc *****************marc then put his email address but i have no way to fwd it

I posted a request for more information from PeakedOut about hunting equipment for my son yesterday or the day before on this site. I noticed you posted a note that Marc wanted to contact me about this but had no email address. If you want to forward my email address to Mark, or whoever wants to reply it is: xxxxx Please don't post it on the website. Thank you very much for all the wonderful information you've been posting lately. cj *****************************cj posted his email. as i wrote in my previous post, i have NO WAY to fwd emails. they don't come through on blogger

Thanks Peter, more good news! If there are any readers interested, Ravi Batra predicted this economic holocaust (9 year cycles) in ‘The Great Depression of 1990’. For the history background, Eustace Mullins’ ‘Secrets of the Federal Reserve’ is very well researched, but take the ‘Jewish plot’ angles with a critical pinch of salt.

Eyeballs: ‘Revolution is forced change. We have quite enough change going on, and it will only accelerate.’

That’s what I think. Revolution is accelerating change. But for a positive outcome, changing human consciousness is required – that’s what we lack. If others advise remedial measures to patch up a rotten system, or wish to retreat to their survival bunkers, my very best wishes go with them.

But as I said, most people don’t choose revolution. They are usually driven to it as the least hard option. Remember the 1930s? ‘The system’ survived, but what a price. World-wide, millions were jobless & homeless. Many just died. Others survived by begging, or selling their wives & children on the streets.

I personally don’t think that is a viable price. Revolution is a win-win option. If people threaten it, they will certainly get concessions. W/out the threat, the big boys & girls will just pass the cost of the crisis off onto ordinary millions – as immeasurable suffering.